23 novembre 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has awarded its new multivendor cloud contract to a few companies, the spy organization confirmed Friday.
Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, IBM and Oracle all confirmed to C4ISRNET they had been awarded the CIA's Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract, which will serve as the intelligence community's cloud environment. NextGov, which first broke the news, reported Google as an additional winner.
The CIA declined to confirm specific vendors to C4ISRNET.
“We are excited to work with the multiple industry partners awarded the Intelligence Community (IC) Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) contract and look forward to utilizing, alongside our IC colleagues, the expanded cloud capabilities resulting from this diversified partnership,” CIA spokesperson Chelsea Robinson said.
The CIA declined to provide the contract value, though contract documents obtained by NextGov in 2019 stated it could be valued in the “tens of billions.” The draft request for proposals, released in February 2020 and obtained by C4ISRNET, was considering a 15-year performance period, a five-year base and two five-year options.
The C2E contract is a follow-on award to the intel community's Commercial Cloud Services contact. AWS was the sole provider for that contract, which was worth $600 million.
“We are honored to continue to support the intelligence community as they expand their transformational use of cloud computing. Together, we're building innovative solutions across all classification levels that deliver operational excellence and allow for missions to be performed faster and more securely,” an AWS spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Microsoft, which won the Defense Department's single-award, controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, said the company was “eager” to work with the intel community.
“We applaud the intelligence community in advancing its cloud strategy to the next phase in order to take advantage of the latest commercially available cloud technologies,” the AWS spokesperson said.
Jay Bellisimo, IBM's general manager for the U.S. public and federal market, said that the company “is proud to further its collaboration with the U.S. federal government.”
16 octobre 2023 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
South Korea will kick off its largest-ever defence exhibition this week, as the country seeks to turbocharge its arms sales and showcase a rare appearance by a U.S. nuclear-capable bomber.
20 mars 2018 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Daniel Cebul WASHINGTON ― As unmanned platforms, cyber systems and human-machine partnering become more prevalent in 21st century war fighting, the effectiveness of combat units will be determined by how quickly information can be processed and transmitted between air-breathers and machines. To achieve the high levels of brain-system communication that will be required on future battlefields, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a new program to develop a noninvasive neural interface that will connect soldiers with technology. The goal of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N³) program is to “pursue a path to a safe, portable neural interface system capable of reading from and writing to multiple points in the brain at once,” according to Dr. Al Emondi, a program manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office. “We're asking multidisciplinary teams of researchers to construct approaches that enable precise interaction with very small areas of the brain, without sacrificing signal resolution or introducing unacceptable latency into the N3 system.” Although technologies that allow for high-quality brain system communications exist today, these invasive techniques are not a practical solution for ubiquitous man-machine communication. Before soldiers can communicate with their R2-D2 units, DARPA scientists must overcome several significant scientific and engineering challenges. The most significant challenge, according to a DARPA press release, will be overcoming the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull and brain tissue. If this initial challenge is surmounted, the focus of the program will shift to developing algorithms for encoding and decoding neural signals, evaluating system safety through animal testing and ultimately asking human volunteers to test the technology. While communication neurotechnology has a stronger foothold in science fiction than reality, Emondi believes devoting resources to the enterprise will spur breakthroughs. “Smart systems will significantly impact how our troops operate in the future, and now is the time to be thinking about what human-machine teaming will actually look like and how it might be accomplished,” he said. “If we put the best scientists on this problem, we will disrupt current neural interface approaches and open the door to practical, high-performance interfaces.” DARPA wants the four-year project to conclude with a demonstration of a bidirectional system being used to interface human-machine interactions with unmanned platforms, active cyber defense systems or other Department of Defense equipment. Recognizing the potentially wide ethical, legal and social implications of such neurotechnology, DARPA is also asking independent legal and ethical experts to advise the program as N³ technologies mature. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/03/19/darpa-wants-to-connect-human-brains-and-machines
3 août 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
A Russia-linked threat actor, APT28, is using a car-for-sale phishing lure to deliver a new Windows backdoor called HeadLace.